WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to Papua New Guinea will focus, in part, on detailed discussion establishing a U.S. military presence in the country, according to experts.
Underpinning the establishment of a U.S. military presence in PNG is the Defense Cooperation Agreement the two countries signed in May.
The Defense Cooperation Agreement “will form the foundational framework for the two countries to enhance bilateral security cooperation” and “improve the capacity of the Papua New Guinea Defense Force,” said a statement released by the Pentagon on Tuesday.
“This is a major step for both the United States and Papua New Guinea,” said Zack Cooper, former special assistant to the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy during the George W. Bush administration and now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
“U.S. officials know that they need to have access to more facilities in the Indo-Pacific region, but most of that access has been limited to existing U.S. treaty allies and a limited set of long-standing partnerships. Papua New Guinea is the first major new access point for the United States in years,” Cooper told VOA Korean via email.
“Defense Secretary Austin’s trip is likely to focus on the details and implementation, as well as providing a visible indication of growing U.S.-PNG ties,” said Terence Roehrig, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
“His visit will also likely seek to allay any concerns in Papua New Guinea that this will lead to a permanent U.S. base and somehow infringe on the country’s sovereignty, an important issue since the agreement has yet to be ratified in the PNG parliament,” he told VOA’s Korean Service via email.
The defense agreement will be released officially after the PNG parliament ratifies it as expected in August. It will allow the U.S. to station troops and vessels at six sites including Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island, according to Agence France-Presse, which obtained a copy of the agreement.
“These six sites are useful for both air and naval forces, which are both critical in the large expanses across the Pacific,” said Cooper. “For Papua New Guinea, I think this will open up new possibilities in terms of not only security cooperation but also economic assistance. This trip will help solidify those arrangements.”
Experts said Austin’s visit featuring discussions with PNG Prime Minister James Marape and his top defense officials is important as the region has become another theater of U.S.-China rivalry.
Dennis Wilder, who served as the National Security Council director for China from 2004-05, told VOA’s Korean Service via email that Austin’s trip “demonstrates that the region is a priority and that the United States will make considerable efforts to counter China’s attempts to bring the region into its sphere of influence” while the security pact “strengthens the U.S. footprint in the western Pacific.”
Roehrig said the U.S. ties with PNG are important “to keep pace with Beijing’s presence in the South Pacific” and to “ensure regional access.”
Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service via email Tuesday that China is “not opposed to countries’ efforts to grow ties with Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Island countries.”
“We always advocate,” he continued, that the international community to give “more attention and support” to island nations and that “the negotiation and signing of any cooperation document should help realize this goal.”
He added, however, that “we should be on alert particularly for geopolitical games under the pretext of cooperation” and that “any cooperation should not target at any third country.”
For China, the region is the so-called Air Silk Road, an important part of its Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to connect Asia and Central and South America through Pacific Island countries.
According to Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation research center, in addition to the first island-chain, which includes Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia, China has been seeking to exert its dominance over the second island-chain comprising countries in the South Pacific such as Palau, Solomon Islands and PNG.
“China has this notion of the first island chain that they totally want to control, and a second island chain, which the Solomons could be part of, where it would establish pretty significant control,” said Bennett in a telephone interview. “The U.S. doesn’t want China to get there.”
According to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the first chain comprises the Kuril Islands, the main Japanese archipelago, Okinawa, the northern part of the Philippines archipelago, the Malay Peninsula and Taiwan. The second consists of the islands of Japan stretching to Guam and the islands of Micronesia.
China reached a security agreement with the Solomon Islands in April 2022. The security agreement allows China to send ships to the islands to “carry out logistical replacement” as well as military forces to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects.”
Cooper said: “China will probably step up efforts in Solomon Islands and other locations in response, so American leaders and their counterparts will want to watch closely to see what Beijing might do in the coming weeks and months.”
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